By the mid-1960s, Palestinians in Jordan had seemingly settled into a stable pattern of life inside the camps. Life moved beyond the basic struggle for survival, and a vibrant political economic life flourished. Moreover, as
chapter 2 described, Palestinians had an informal set of rules based on strategically selected pre-1948 experiences that protected community assets and preserved a Palestinian way of life in the midst of chaos. However, the Arab defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the influx of Gazan refugees, and the bloody battles of Black September decimated locally grown Palestinian institutions and reintroduced chaos inside Baqa’a, Wihdat, and Jerash refugee camps. Once again, Palestinians were pushed into conditions not of their choosing and forced to renegotiate the evolution of property rights.
In this chapter, I trace the formalization of property rights inside Palestinian refugee camps across Jordan. Using biographies and historical accounts of Jordanian leaders, I discuss the transformative events of the late 1960s with a focus on how regional and international battles destroyed the internal workings of Palestinian refugee camps. In the political vacuum following Black September in 1970, the Jordanian regime sought to quell Palestinian nationalism, tame the camps through co-optation of camp institutions, and enhance tax revenues from refugee businesses. Specifically, they compelled Palestinians to talk about the future of the camps in Jordanian-run camp services improvement committees (CSIC). Using interviews I learned that Palestinians, struggling to regain order in the midst of the chaos, were forced to negotiate the formalization of property rights. As the New Institutional Economics (NIE) perspective expected, Jordanian officials dominated the process and operated as the credible enforcer of formally defined titles. However, contrary to NIE arguments, Palestinians did not passively accept domination or remain “locked into” state efforts at incorporation. Instead, Palestinians strategically converted traditional ways of securing protection in chaos to fit with the new ruling political coalition inside the camps. In an imperfect manner, Palestinians created a parallel system of enforcing property ownership that melded informal Palestinian practices with Jordanian rules. The system permitted Palestinians to keep many political economic affairs within the community. Of course, they still confronted tension between Jordan’s domination and the protection offered through formal property rights. Nevertheless, the resulting hybrid system of property rights demonstrates the resiliency of Palestinians in protecting their assets and community in the face of outside threats to the existing camp order.
SHOCKS TO THE EXISTING CAMP ORDER
In the late 1960s, a confluence of regional and international events created tragedy and chaos inside Baqa’a, Wihdat, and Jerash refugee camps. The camps were particularly vulnerable because of their transitional nature. They did not have a sovereign leader to defend or protect their interests on the global scale. As mentioned in
chapter 1, the protection gap inside the camps was the result of Arab countries abstaining from the 1951 Convention that offered basic rights to refugees and assigned responsibilities to host states. Arab states did not want to remain responsible for the upkeep of Palestinian refugees. Because Palestinian refugee camps did not fall under the jurisdiction of the UNHCR, there was a purposeful legal protection gap. As a result, political forces outside their control often found a way of infiltrating and introducing chaos into the camps. In particular, the Arab defeat during the 1967 war, the influx of Gazans, and the battles of Black September altered the political landscape inside the camps. In the early years, Fatah played a salient role in camp life across Jordan. Though there were a variety of alternative political groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and Hamas vying for power and control, Fatah, a nationalist Palestinian group, played a critical role in crafting Palestinian institutions at the camp level (Brand 1988; Sayigh 1997). In the 1960s, Palestinian political identity manifested itself openly across camps in Jordan as Fatah unions, councils, and meetings flourished (Brand 1988; Sayigh 1997). But in 1965, Fatah began overstepping its political boundaries inside Jordan. At the 1965 Arab League meetings, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and King Hussein were openly hostile to one another.
Though Fatah was founded in 1959, it did not enjoy widespread popularity until after 1968. In particular, it was only
after the old guard of the PLO and Arab countries endured the demoralizing 1967 defeat against Israel and Fatah won the battle of Karamah launched against Israelis in 1968 that it became a household name in Palestinian refugee camps (Sayigh 1997). The growth in Fatah’s stature in the refugee camps was due to the “heroic image that guerrilla organizations gained as a result of the Karamah battle on March 21, 1968” (Shaul 1986). The battle involved a one-thousand-man Israeli raiding party and six hundred Palestinians supported by forty-eight Jordanian tanks, eleven artillery batteries, and two brigades of infantry (Shaul 1986, 13). The encounter ended with between 70 and 150 casualties and 130 prisoners among the Palestinians, and 23 dead, 70 injured, and 3 missing in action on the Israeli side (Shaul 1986, 13). Though Jordanians fought alongside Palestinians, the narrative of Jordanian participation is often obfuscated. Instead it was hailed as the first
Palestinian military victory over the Israeli army since the war of 1948. After Karamah, “To declare Palestinian identity no longer means that one is a refugee or a second-class citizen. Rather, it is a declaration that arouses pride, because the Palestinian has become the
fida’i or revolutionary who bears arms” (Sayigh 1997, 195). Yasser Arafat, a young revolutionary and a founding member of Fatah, capitalized on the guerrilla wins and pushed his grassroots political organization to capture a critical number of seats to control the fourth Palestinian National Council Meeting in Cairo in 1968. Arafat used this victory to nourish the self-esteem and image of Palestinians, to bolster the power of Fatah in comparison to other political groups competing for authority, and to oust the old guard of the PLO. In February 1969, Yasser Arafat and Fatah took control of the PLO.
In 1969, Fatah did not have international legitimacy as a representative of Palestinian refugees. It was a nascent political group, but its authority and legitimacy in representing the future of the Palestinian people was far from secure. Other Arab countries, like Jordan, and factions within the Palestinian political sphere were vying for control of the Palestinian national identity and representation on the international level. Fatah had to generate a Palestinian support base inside the camps.
At the same time, a large influx of Palestinian-Gazan refugees that had been living in Egypt poured into Jordan following the Arab defeat in 1967. In fact, Baqa’a and Jerash camps were built to handle the influx of Palestinians from Gaza. These refugees from Gaza, dispossessed for a second time, faced the same chaos that Palestinians had faced after the 1948 Nakbah. Fatah hoped to represent their plight in Jordan. In turn, Jordan felt that Gazans could disrupt the entire stability of the regime. It was a messy situation for Palestinians caught in the middle of elite politics.
Fueled by the destabilization of a new influx of Gazan refugees and the failure of Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Fatah initiated open attacks along the border with Israel (Sayigh 1997). Israeli counter- and preemptive attacks increased in number as well (Brand 1988, 169). For example, on June 3, 1970, Fatah launched a rocket attack on Beit Shean and Israel retaliated by bombing Irbid in Jordan, killing seven civilians, a solider, and injuring twenty-six others (Shlaim 2008, 318–19). The dangerous cycle of attacks launched by Fatah from refugee camp bases near Amman, Jordan, and counterattacks by Israel prompted increasing uneasiness in the Hashemite regime. The Jordanian military also felt humiliated by their inability to act against Israeli and Palestinian aggressions (Sayigh 1997, 192). In effect, Fatah threatened to undermine the Jordanian regime’s long-term survival. The Hashemite monarchy, furious with Fatah’s attacks and the difficult position it placed Jordan in with respect to the West, Israel, and its own military, engaged in several violent clashes with Fatah inside the refugee camps. In a biography of his life, Hussein later recalled,
We had thousands of incidents of breaking the law, of attacking the people. It was a very unruly state of affairs in the country and I continued to try…towards the end I felt I was losing control. In the last six months leading up to the crisis the army began to rebel [against Fatah’s behavior]. I think the gamble was probably the army would fracture along Palestinian-Jordanian lines. That never happened, thank God. (Shlaim 2008, 320)
By June 7, 1970, open fighting broke out between the Jordanian military and Fatah fighters in Zarqa refugee camp (Sayigh 1997). Two assassination attempts were made on King Hussein. In this context, the Bedouin units of the Jordanian military launched heavy shelling and fighting in Wihdat and Al-Husseini camps on the outskirts of Amman (Shlaim 2008, 320). After three days of fighting, a ceasefire was declared, but the deal was tenuous. Hussein’s power was threatened and Palestinian authority seemed on the upswing inside Jordan. On August 15, 1970, Arafat reportedly said, “We have decided to convert Jordan in to a cemetery for all conspirators—Amman shall be the Hanoi of the revolution” (Shlaim 2008, 325). This set the stage for an all-out war between Palestinians and Jordanians. On September 17, 1970, King Hussein made the decision to “recapture his capital” and launched another attack (Sayigh 1997; Shlaim 2008, 327). After long and bloody battles on both sides, Fatah and other political groups were defeated and departed Amman to the northern part of Jordan in the ‘Aljun hills, where they were finally expelled in July 1971 (Brand 1988; Sayigh 1997; Shlaim 2008). At a July 17, 1971, press conference, Hussein stated that Jordan was “completely quiet” and that there was “no problem” now (Shlaim 2008, 343). By July 1971, the final rupture between Jordan and the PLO was complete. King Hussein defeated Fatah-PLO forces and sought to establish Jordanian sovereignty in the camps and rebuild the Jordanian state. Locally contrived Palestinian political structures suffered “near-total destruction” and all Palestinian institutions, including informal property rights, were officially “closed” inside the camps (Brand 1988, 15, table 1.2, 171). In an interview, a Palestinian summarized how refugees felt following Black September. He succinctly noted, “We had now become a potential source of trouble. We knew we would face new levels of discrimination. The Gazan refugees would have it the worse because they were the newest” (I-3J). Another noted, “Again, we had to start from scratch in the camps and pull ourselves out of the dirt. We had done it before and we knew could do it again” (I-28J).
OUTSIDE DOMINATION OF PROPERTY RIGHT FORMALIZATION IN THE CAMPS
In this context, Jordan emerged as a powerful force in the political vacuum in the camps following Black September. Following the ouster of Fatah and other political groups, Jordan deeply entangled itself in refugee camp life. Jordanian entrance into the Palestinian refugee political fray was unprecedented. Legally, the refugee camps were purposefully devoid of a sovereign state due to the international legal quagmire of displacement and refugee status. Indeed, Jordan’s abstention from the UNHCR’s 1951 Convention with respect to caring for Palestinian refugees meant that Jordan did not have legal sovereignty in the camps, even though they asserted their authority following Black September.
Despite the legal oddity and messiness of Jordanian involvement in Palestinian refugee camps, the political ambiguity created an opportunity for institutional formalization. Jordanian authorities set up camp-level offices for the Department of Palestinian Affairs (DPA). The camp-level offices were known as the camp services improvement committees (CSIC). The CSIC housed Jordanian officials who were responsible for crafting formal property rights inside the camps among other things (
www.dpa.gov.jo/). Consistent with the expectations of the New Institutional Economics approach, it was only after Jordanian intervention inside the camps’ institutional structures that previously informal claims evolved into formal property rights. Jordan was a third-party enforcer that could credibly define formal property claims inside the camps.
Formal property rights in refugee camps like Baqa’a, Jerash, and Wihdat required refugees to legally register their property claims with the CSIC. The CSIC issued legal titles to assets in the camps (
www.dpa.gov.jo/). The CSIC’s system of registering existing claims to property mimicked how Jordanians registered property (I-2J, I-3J). Specifically, twenty-five out of twenty-eight business owners interviewed in Palestinian refugee camps in 2007 claimed that the system inside the camps was exactly like the system of property titles in Jordan. These were responses to distributional question number four in appendix B. Jordanian officials at the CSIC requested that refugees visit the local CSIC office and register their existing claims to resources so that formal titles could be issued (I-79J,
www.dpa.gov/jo). Next, formal property rights permitted refugees to transfer property rights through the Jordanian officials located at the CSIC. Beginning in the early 1970s, the CSIC presided over basic property transactions in the camps like witnessing and writing contracts for camp residents (
www.dpa.gov.jo/). The establishment of property rights ushered in police and security forces that monitored property inside the camps. The CSIC maintained the security and order of property by having police and civil defense stations throughout the camps. The DPA reports that there was one police station in Wihdat, one in Baqa’a, and one in Jerash. These police stations monitored criminal activity, including property violations. In addition to the police stations, the CSIC collected payments from businesses and residents to operate a local security force that patrolled property at night. The CSIC enforced property contracts by delivering suspected violators to the Jordanian judicial and penal system (I-71J).
In interviews, Palestinians described how they registered previously informal claims of ownership or rentals of homes and businesses inside the camps. An iron manufacturing business owner in Zarqa camp said, “My family has worked in iron welding for many years. I inherited this business from my father. For the last twenty-five years, I have formally owned it in my name. The government gives us the right to own a business or a home inside the camps. My title is registered at the CSIC” (I-21J). A glass manufacturing and design entrepreneur in Wihdat described the process of registering a previously informal property claim: “If I wanted to establish my ownership of the business, sell it, or rent the space then I was required to go to the CSIC to record my name or a buyer’s name. We had to conduct this business in front of a witness and exchange payment there too” (I-85J). Another business owner reported, “The [Jordanian] government tightly regulates businesses in the camps. You must register the business and have an approved license. I don’t own my place. I rent it from another refugee. I registered my rental in the CSIC” (I-16J). One refugee said, “I rent my spot in the camp from a family. I started many years ago paying about $700 U.S. dollars a month but now rent has gone up to $1500 U.S. dollars. I register my business at the CSIC” (I-17J). Many concluded, “There is a strong sense of law and order coming from Jordan. The security forces of the police and army patrol the main road frequently” (I-44J).
JORDANIAN ENGAGEMENT OF PALESTINIANS AT THE CSIC
After learning how Palestinians registered claims, the new system of formal property rights seemed entirely under the control of Jordanian authorities. From a theoretical standpoint, the process of formalization seemed to fit squarely with a New Institutional Economics perspective on institutional formalization. In keeping with the theory, Jordanian intervention was necessary to formalize titles.
Moreover, the structure of the CSIC reflected Jordanian domination of the camps. The DPA exerted almost complete control over the CSIC by setting the yearly budget for each refugee camp’s CSIC office (I-1J, I-2J, I-3J;
www.dpa.gov.jo/). In addition, the DPA selected CSIC members from the camp in coordination with the administrative governor of the area in which the camp is located (I-1J, I-2J, I-72J;
www.dpa.gov/jo). Each camp had a centrally located CSIC office with roughly seven to thirteen Palestinian members representing various camp segments (I-1J, I-72J). It is important to note that the refugee camp members that serve on the CSIC did not represent different political parties because political groups are not encouraged in the camps (I-72J). This is an important difference between the functioning of local committees in Jordanian and Lebanese refugee camps. In Lebanon, Fatah set up local committees and different political interests were represented on the committee. The clusters of Palestinian refugees living in the camps also meant that Jordanian authorities could monitor and control their actions. “All refugee camps—even veritable townships like Aqabat Jabir, near Jericho, and Zarqa, near Amman—were closely guarded by armed forces, whether policy or army, that regulated refugees’ communications with the outside world” (Dann 1989, 11).
Certainly, Jordanians had the power and means to impose an efficient system of formal property rights on the camps. Jordanian power over the camps was at its zenith after the decimation of Palestinian political institutions following Black September. Despite this power and potential for easy formalization and extractive revenue enhancement schemes, Jordanians painstakingly engaged Palestinians in negotiations, registration procedures, and enforcement strategies. Jordan engaged in talks with Palestinians through a series of ongoing micro-level dialogues at the CSIC.
CSIC offices were the local meeting spot for Palestinian sheiks and businessmen to negotiate the transition from informal claims to property to formal legal titles with Jordanians. These negotiations did not occur overnight, but were instead the result of a sustained dialogue between Jordanian officials and other members of the refugee community. Jordanians invited Palestinian refugee community leaders and businessmen to the CSIC to engage in a dialogue about the formalization of property rights.
1This was a clunky and costly process. Contrary to the expectations of New Institutional Economics, the new system of formal property rights was not very efficient. In fact, the process of formalization seemed inefficient by design. In interviews it was generally felt that “Jordanians and Palestinians cooperated and the CSIC acted as a meeting point for Jordanians and Palestinians. It was a place to share and exchange ideas about institutions, like property rights, inside the camps” (I-72J).
Why go to all the trouble of engaging with Palestinian refugees that had just caused a costly military battle if simple efficiency was the primary motivating force behind institutional formalization? Initially, after the devastation of Black September, Palestinians inside the camps feared that Jordanian involvement in camp affairs would prevent the ownership of businesses and homes in the camps like before their dominance. In particular, the Hashemite regime discouraged Palestinian aspirations. Jordan’s dynastic territorial interests in the West Bank “clearly ran counter to aspirations for the recovery of all of Palestine followed by its establishment as an independent state. Political activities within Jordan were kept within the Hashemite framework” (Hamid 1975, 92).
Though Jordan said it would not push for institutions that enshrined a “Palestinian identity,” they did hope to assimilate Palestinians through a variety of political strategies, including the formalization of property rights that could meld a Jordanian and Palestinian identity. Sayigh notes, “Jordan sought actively to subsume the Palestinianism and to recast its Palestinian subjects as Jordanian citizens” (1997, 21). In an interview one respondent noted, “Jordan had a couple of goals during the formalization of titles inside the camps. First, the former minister of electricity noted that Jordanian officials realized the economic growth occurring in the camps and the tax revenue collection based on a system of formal titles helped them capture this wealth” (I-79J). Officials could capture the revenues of lucrative construction businesses through an efficient system of property titles (I-1J). More importantly, Jordan hoped to consolidate and “tame” the large Palestinian population through the registration and enforcement of property titles inside the camps. Indeed, the Hashemite regime strove to integrate the Palestinians into Jordanian society and argued that they were one indivisible people.
This motive for formalization is not surprising when one traces the behavior of King Hussein with respect to Palestinian identity and representation. For example, even in 1964 before Black September, Jordanians feared the rising power of the PLO, and King Hussein resisted early proposals made by the Arab League to create a Palestinian “entity.” Hussein ultimately compromised whereby the United Arab Republic (UAR) and other Arab governments agreed that the Fatah-PLO would be institutionalized but it would not be permitted to challenge Jordan’s sovereignty over West Jordan (Shlaim 2008, 206). Hussein wrongly assumed he could control the PLO by keeping it close by within the borders of Jordan, rather than far away hosted by another Arab country.
We know that the deal ultimately unraveled in Jordan in 1970, but it is clear from these early regional negotiations that Hussein insisted that Jordan
alone officially spoke for the Palestinians within its borders. By 1969, the establishment of Fatah’s authority in the PLO threatened to undermine the very foundations of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan that claimed to represent the Palestinian population. This was reflected in a popular regime slogan, “Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan” (Shlaim 2008, 206). A carpenter in Irbid camp asserted, “The [Jordanian] government is in control of the camp’s titling system here. Even still, I suppose things are pretty good for us. They are certainly better than in Lebanon and Syria” (I-46J).
Instead of excluding Palestinians from negotiations, Jordan pursued a political strategy of co-optation to placate and stabilize the refugee camps (Sayigh 1997). After Black September, it excluded only the most potent threats to their authority like the PLO-Fatah and other Palestinian political groups like the PFLP (Sayigh 1997). Though some Palestinians from the camp community were permitted to negotiate the new system of property rights at the CSIC, they faced a lot of difficulty in finding a Palestinian pathway for protection in the post–Black September political climate.
DYNAMIC RESPONSES TO JORDANIAN RULE
At the moment that Jordan asserted dominance in refugee camps, Palestinians were faced with a critical decision. During negotiations at the CSIC, they had to devise a strategy to avoid total state incorporation while still protecting assets. Palestinians could choose from a variety of strategic responses to Jordanian domination and forced formalization. I outline just a few to give an idea of the diverse trajectories Palestinians could have taken. First, Palestinians could have done nothing, remained passive, and fully submitted to Jordanian rule. Second, they could have forcefully rebelled against Jordanian rule and engaged in violent conflict to assert Palestinian independence. Finally, they could have pursued a middle path that balanced Palestinian desires for protection within the parameters of Jordanian rule.
At a critical juncture in the Palestinian narrative following the chaos of Black September, refugees did not passively accept Jordanian rule or violently clash with Jordanian forces again. Palestinians did not get locked into their despair or pre–Black September informal property rights systems. In addition, they did not violently rebel against Jordanian authority. These were wise strategic considerations because the first option would have destined the Palestinian community to complete domination and co-optation by Jordanians. The second path would have likely resulted in the loss of even the most basic protections considering Fatah’s recent defeat and King Hussein’s military might after Black September.
As Thelen suggests in her study of the evolution of vocational institutions in Germany, individuals are constantly renegotiating institutions on the ground (2004, 6). Palestinians wanted to work within the new challenges they faced after Black September to create a system that melded Jordanian rules with their communal ideas of how property should be protected. Palestinians strategically pursued a middle pathway. Palestinian members of the CSIC negotiated a system of property rights that converted traditional Palestinian ideas about property claim enforcement into a system that melded with Jordanian rules.
Conversations with sheiks or community religious leaders and business owners that were sitting members on the CSIC gave insight into the Palestinian strategy during negotiations over property rights formalization. Sheiks were respected older gentlemen that represented the Palestinian community’s position during property rights negotiations at the CSIC. Sheiks were repositories of pre-
Nakbah (1948) Palestinian history and anchored the community’s beliefs and values in the context of the refugee camps (I-72J). Refugee sheiks hoped to give Palestinians a voice inside the CSIC during property rights negotiations (I-72J). They wanted a voice during negotiations because they had just witnessed the failure of Fatah, a group that had once served as the mouthpiece for the Palestinian community in Jordan. They hoped to balance Jordanian rules with Palestinian desires for protection from state incorporation. One sheikh said, “I hoped to incorporate Palestinian traditions of justice into the shape and structure of the new property right system” (I-72J). Camp businesses that were present during negotiations also wanted to increase the security of their assets
and keep enforcement mechanisms within the Palestinian community in the new political economic climate. Many businesses were expanding and increasingly engaged in markets outside the camps in neighboring Jordanian towns and villages. “Having a title that recognized my ownership of a business by the Jordanians would give me greater security in our new situation. So naturally, we pushed for it [formal titles] to happen. But we wanted it to be done in a way consistent with Palestinian values” (I-20J).
Sheikhs and business owners of the CSIC had a deep reservoir of Palestinian institutional experiences from which to draw to guide the design of the new formal property rights system in Jordan. As outlined in
chapter 2, they had a diverse set of Ottoman and British colonial experiences in land tenure rules. In addition, they had their post-
Nakbah system of informal rules they could use as well. What parts of their group history would they strategically meld with Jordanian rules to protect the community and assets?
In interviews, I pressed Palestinians to expand on the process of formalization in the camps. I learned interesting responses when I asked sheikhs and business owners questions about safety and title enforcement practices inside the camps. “Do you feel safe in the camps? Do you feel your home or business is protected here? Why do you feel safe? Moreover, if you caught someone trying to steal or abuse your property (business/home), what would you do? Why do you resolve conflicts in this particular way?” The responses to these questions revealed a complex hybrid system of title enforcement in which Palestinians converted communal traditions of enforcement into the Jordanian-controlled system of formal property rights. An ironsmith in Baqa’a shared,
Jordan wanted to control and formalize property rights. So we went along with some things they wanted—like for us to register claims at the CSIC. But inside the camps, it is really the Palestinian not Jordanian rules that win out. We have a Palestinian system of justice that runs parallel with, and sometimes intersects with the Jordanian one. If things get too out of hand with family violence and revenge in the camps then we might go to the Jordanians but that is very rare. (I-4J)
Palestinians hoped to bring to bear templates of behavior that protected them in the past in similar situations. Specifically, Palestinians described how within the boundaries of the CSIC they converted their own ways of creating order using traditional values of family, honor, and shame from pre-Nakbah and pre–Black September experiences to meet the challenges of Jordanian domination and insulate the community. Though Jordanian courts were available to enforce claims and resolve disputes, Palestinians sought to keep problems within the camps. Refugees wanted to protect the community from Jordanian co-optation. They denied Jordanians full institutional access to the community by emphasizing old village and family traditions for resolving disputes.
The owner of a glass shop in Baqa’a explained how sheiks and business owners at negotiations insisted that enforcement remain at the local level instead of with the Jordanians. “Our religious and community values police the camps here. They are traditional values and rules that have always been around. And we use them here now. An outside force like the Jordanians did not do this for us” (I-12J).
In general, Palestinians felt very safe in Baqa’a, Wihdat, and Jerash camps because community and religious values anchored camp behavior even after the destruction of Black September. “Though we have a Jordanian court system and set of rules on the books, we tend to do it like Palestinians have always done. We deal with troubles in the family and in the community. The courts are available, of course. But they are costly in terms of my time and money” (I-43J). Moreover, “No one dares to do bad things because families rule in a close community like ours. If you behave badly then your entire family will suffer. It is like the olden days even now. I prefer to resolve disputes using family and village channels. The Jordanian courts are too costly for me” (I-6J). Another said, “I mostly rely on friends and family to resolve disputes and do business in the camps” (I-8J). A business owner in Wihdat camp gave insight into the complex system of enforcement in the camps: “I feel the area is very secure here for two reasons. In my opinion, people have good values. They have Palestinian values of honor and family responsibility. Second, the Jordanians have provided a strong sense of law and people naturally fear going to jail or sanctions” (I-41J).
In the camps, a unique system of title enforcement melded the Jordanian justice system and the Palestinian tribal, community, and religious systems to enforce titles. The Jordanian system of enforcement provided one level of protection: “There is a general sense of security here because of government control and protection of my business” (I-25J). But Palestinians were reluctant to use the Jordanian system as the first line of protection: “I rarely use the courts. In fact, I have only been once. I ultimately won but it was such a pain in the ass” (I-50J). In addition, “I feel the community is really secure here because of our values. I wouldn’t go to the Jordanian courts because they are slow and very expensive. We can solve the problems right here without them” (I-29J).
Aside from frustrations with the lengthy process and fees associated with the courts, Palestinians avoided the courts to maintain their independence from the Jordanian state by resolving disputes within the confines of the camp community. One refugee said, “I prefer to not use the Jordanian courts to resolve conflicts. This is partly because the fees and time required are costly. But mostly, I want to keep this within the [Palestinian] community” (I-6J). Most Palestinians preferred to use traditional means of protection first. One refugee explained his thoughts on protection inside the refugee camps:
I live in a place where Allah, community, and self-policing are the first ways of protecting myself. If anything weird or strange occurs then it is usually seen by my neighbors. I don’t like to rely on the courts. Instead, I use my friends and family to put pressure on anyone that might do something bad. If it is someone strange to me, from outside the camps, well then I might use the Jordanians to help me. (I-4J)
Interestingly, Palestinians understood they could not maintain complete independence from the state. To strike a balance between complete state incorporation and communal independence they adopted an enforcement system that permitted the Palestinian and Jordanian enforcement systems to intersect. Palestinians, like the Zomias responding to state encounters in Scott’s (2009)
The Art of Not Being Governed, merged their customs with those of their more powerful state neighbors in order to manage and repel complete state incorporation. Zomias had plastic notions of ethnic group identity that they deployed at key moments to assert common ground with and in some cases independence from more influential neighbors. For the Zomias it was a political strategy for survival to determine how much of their group’s way of life should be melded with outsiders.
Indeed, Palestinians had a long history of negotiating their protection with powerful outsiders like the Ottoman Empire and British mandate authorities. Divine (1994) studies how everyday men and women in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Palestine managed their existence and protection in the face of outside rule. Though scholars commonly portray the Ottoman Empire as a blanket force that imposed authority and institution, their authority “did not come entirely at the expense of local autonomy and initiative” (Divine 1994, 2). Imperial infrastructure was not an “alien graft” on Palestinian communities because the “actions of ordinary people also shaped the way in which government institutions were structured and operated” (Divine 1994, 2–3). Institutions were created by pressures from within Palestinian societies that varied across villages and regions within the country. Though the Ottomans had a cohesive policy for the registration of
musha or communal land use, for example, some communities were inclined to register their property with local religious courts while others operated informally without signed titles or contracts. The variation at the local level demonstrates how Palestinians engaged in what Divine calls “creative survival” (1994, 4). Just as Scott’s (2009) analysis of the Zomias illustrates the plasticity of communal institutions, Divine similarly argues that Palestinians during the Ottoman era “changed their outlooks, their behaviors, and their relationships to make their way in increasingly changing circumstances” (1994, 4).
Palestinian refugees “creatively survived” institutional negotiations with Jordanians by reshaping traditional modes of protecting property and in turn avoided complete state incorporation. Palestinian customs of managing and enforcing property were not rigid rules incontrovertible to modern conditions. As a community living in a transitional space, Palestinians treated their traditions as “plastic” so they could meld and convert to the schemes of the new ruling coalitions. This was a political strategy for survival among Palestinian community members in Jordan. For example, the Jordanian and Palestinian enforcement systems worked in tandem to sanction title violators. A sheikh in Baqa’a camp revealed many of the intricacies of tribal law in the refugee camps in Jordan (I-72J). Jordanians allowed Palestinians to mete out a measure of enforcement and justice at the camp level because ultimately the Jordanian system set the boundaries for acceptable behavior. Palestinians agreed on this system because it gave them a measure of communal independence:
Let me tell you how things happen here. For example, if an individual stole a piece of machinery from a carpentry business then the victim would notify the head of his family of the problem. It is likely, because everyone is always watching and monitoring, that the business owner would have a suspect in mind or would hear through camp gossip the name of the culprit. Camp elders would gather to discuss the case and would bring the Holy Quran to swear on the facts of the case. The camp elders would bring the suspect and his family to ask for forgiveness from the victim’s family and agree on a document of reconciliation. This was a binding document between families that would contain a specific amount of money [restitution] that was paid to the victim for the price of his machinery or damage to his business. All the relevant parties including village elders signed the document. (I-72J)
The sheik in Baqa’a revealed that
Once the reconciliation document has been declared and signed then the matter might be closed. If it was very serious and the families were upset then we might take the letter to the CSIC and onto a local Jordanian judge where the state decided on how to deal with the guilty man. The judge could decide to incarcerate the man and rule that Jordanian officials could enter the camp with the help of the CSIC to extract the resident. The reconciliation document played a role in determining how the state would act. Sometimes the community guaranteed that they could control the guilty individual so the guilty man could avoid a jail sentence with the Jordanians. (I-72J)
The sheik’s discussion demonstrates how Palestinians carved out a sliver of Palestinian protection in a world of Jordanian domination. Certainly refugees were still under the thumb of Jordanian rule, but the dual enforcement system permitted Palestinians a middle pathway that balanced the need for protection and the reality of Jordanian dominance. Though it was not a perfect system, Palestinians avoided worse alternatives like total state incorporation and communal destruction. In summary, Palestinians responded to shifting conditions in the transitional camp landscape. Past traditions of managing property did not remain frozen in time. Accordingly, Palestinians converted their traditional community experiences in managing property rights to work with the newly imposed parameters of Jordanian control inside the camps.
THE TENSION IN PROTECTION AND PREDATION
Refugees felt that the dual systems worked well together, though imperfectly. Indeed, a central theme I heard from refugees during my study of institutional evolution among transitional communities was the tradeoff between institutionalized protection and institutionalized predation. During interviews, respondents were conflicted in their representation of Jordanian authority and the nature of protection in the camps.
On one hand, refugees felt the Jordanian system guaranteed legal protection: “I have been in business for twenty-five years here. I think nowadays people feel this place is generally secure because of the police, guards, and rule of law” (I-35J). Others were careful to attribute their protection to a combination of community values and Jordanian law. For example, one refugee said, “I feel protection because of people’s values and the strength of law” (I-21J). On the other hand, upon deeper reflection, some were not so sure that the Jordanians had good intentions in using the law or security forces to protect Palestinians. Instead Jordanians were characterized as more interested in protecting their own people from Palestinians. An iron welder said, “Yes, it is safe here. We have our way of life and community values make us feel safe. People have respect for the Jordanians…. Well…. No, no that is not true. I think we mostly fear the Jordanians and the police” (I-60J).
During interviews refugees expressed an underlying sense that Jordanians assisted in protection but that their presence also exposed Palestinians to predation. The tension between submitting to Jordanian domination while carving a small sliver of Palestinian order created vulnerabilities to the community. Palestinians learned that by institutionalizing Jordanian forms of protection they were potentially institutionalizing Jordanian predation of their own politically weaker community as well.
This issue of institutionalized predation was evident among certain portions of the Palestinian community. Palestinian refugees from the Gazan conflict felt especially vulnerable to Jordanian predation because they lacked any special status in Jordan: “Those Palestinians from Gaza [1967] that are without wasta [political connection or corruption] do not always do well here” (I-42J).
This vulnerability to predation was clearest in Jerash refugee camp. The majority of the camp population had Palestinian Gazan refugee status. Palestinians from Gaza lacked any citizenship claims in Jordan. With the exception of a few families who had political connections and were able to obtain citizenship through royal decrees, most Palestinians from Gaza were treated as refugees with only partial benefits and sought shelter in one of the six emergency camps set up in the wake of the 1967 war. These refugees hold temporary passports and must have a local Jordanian partner or receive the approval of a ministerial council to own property outside the refugee camps. Compared to Wihdat and Baqa’a, Jerash camp contained the highest concentration of Palestinian refugees that came from Gaza and held limited benefits in Jordan. The chart, gleaned from el-Abed (2005) in
chapter 1, highlights disparities in refugee status in Jordan. A refugee carpenter with Gazan status in Jerash camp explained his situation:
I registered my place with the CSIC, originally I bought the place from another Palestinian family that was able to leave the camp shortly after we got here. The CSIC completely controls titling. When I confront a problem with stealing, I try to use tribal law. Of course, there are issues. Sometimes, I can’t resolve the problem with family, especially when I do business with people from outside the camp. I will try to use the Jordanian courts but there is a problem. I am a Gazan and I have no wasta [political connection]. Things are slower and costly for me. I believe they are worse for me than other Palestinians because I am from Gaza. (I-91J)
He felt that the CSIC and camps with more refugees from Gaza were under greater Jordanian control and scrutiny than Wihdat and Baqa’a camps. In his opinion, those other camps fared better because they had fewer percentages of Palestinians from Gaza in their population. “In my opinion, the CSIC is mostly an agent of the government
mukhabarat [secret police]. They collect information about us to make sure we behave properly. Being a Gazan in Jordan makes life harder than if I were just a regular Palestinian here” (I-91J). Another carpenter in Jerash reiterated the challenging situation for the Gazans: “I try to use tribal law and Palestinian ways of doing business. But the
mukhabarat and the government are ever present. They are a hindrance to us. We must register all activity with the CSIC and they control it. They don’t want us to organize ourselves alone” (I-96J). An aluminum business owner said that for enforcement, “The focus is usually on tribal law and family, for me. But the government is a pain. It [the Jordanian government] treats us as a security threat and interferes with our way of life” (I-95J).
Residents in Wihdat and Baqa’a did not emphasize the mukhabarat or secret police in interviews. I am fairly certain the mukhabarat are ever present in camps across Jordan, but communities with higher numbers of 1948 Palestinians did not emphasize or mention their presence to me. Moreover, they were less likely to see the government as a “hindrance” and more as a “helpful” resource when it came to enforcement involvement in the camps. In Jerash camp, an iron welder said, “In day-to-day life, tribal law is the best thing to rely on because I feel the government is mostly a hindrance here. They say they provide ‘security’ here for us. But is the security for us or for them?” (I-90J). This tension, though markedly more evident in Jerash camp, was not entirely absent in other camps. For example, in Wihdat camp one person said, “The area is very secure here. People have good values. Problems are very rare. But we all fear getting involved with the Jordanians. Going to jail there is very bad for us Palestinians” (I-41J). Another Wihdat resident said, “I guess I feel safe here. The Jordanian patrols here are an ever-present threat here. They make me feel secure living on this main street but they also scare me too. You know?” (I-33J).
Jordanian enforcement mechanisms like police patrols, prison sentences, and tough fines enhanced the safety of assets, but also made Palestinians feel that they were constantly monitored and vulnerable to Hashemite power. Property rights were supposed to offer Palestinians protection from chaos, but the system negotiated with Jordanians also left them open to predation. The case of Palestinians formalizing property rights in Jordan after Black September shows that communities in transitional settings face challenging constraints for finding protection in the midst of chaos and more powerful neighbors that seek to control power and resources on the ground. In the face of these parameters, Palestinians searched for what Qian (2003) calls the “feasible” pathway to protection that balanced protection with outside domination. Transitional communities rarely have the opportunity to create “best practice” forms of institutions (Qian 2003). As a result, the pursuit of protection through property rights in imperfect transitional conditions unintentionally opened the community up to predation.
This chapter traced the formalization of property rights in Jordan following the tumultuous events of the Arab-Israeli War and Black September. Jordan pursued a strategy of title formalization to reap the revenues of vibrant camp businesses and to co-opt Palestinian politics. Under the domination of the CSIC, Palestinians melded their own institutions with Jordanian rules. In particular, they converted their previous experiences in enforcement based on shared tribal and community patterns of life into a system that worked in tandem with the Jordanian judicial system. Though this offered a measure of order in the political wilderness of camp life, it also exposed them to Jordanian predation. This tension was most evident in places like Jerash refugee camp where Gazans without legal status were more highly concentrated. Despite its shortcomings, the system of formal property rights in refugee camps across Jordan reflects the tenacity and resilience of Palestinians working to find protection in a transitional space.